posted at 8:41 pm on December 3, 2013 by Allahpundit

House Speaker John Boehner has hired a high-profile immigration adviser, his office announced Tuesday, a surprising move that pro-reform and anti-reform advocates alike interpreted as a step toward reform.

Becky Tallent, an immigration policy wonk, is a well-known figure among immigration advocates, having helped spearhead Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform under President George W. Bush. This year, she took a prominent role in the debate as director of immigration policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, where she organized a team of pro-immigration Republicans and Democrats, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in an effort to craft a workable policy proposal…

“I think it’s a clear signal that the speaker is serious about getting this done,” Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, told msnbc.

He said two weeks ago that he wasn’t done with immigration reform and he meant it, apparently. Could be, I suppose, that Tallent is being hired as more of a show horse than a work horse for now, to get amnesty fans off his back for a few months while he weighs his next move. (Boehner likes to alternate gestures of support for border hawks with amnesty panders like this.) But Tallent’s been working for immigration reform for a long time; she wouldn’t have taken the job, I assume, if she thought she’d been hired only to provide political cover while Boehner quietly plots out a serious border enforcement measure. The significance of this hire is that he’s finally showing that he really does want to pass something, and sooner rather than later.

Maybe O-Care, ironically, has presented him with an opportunity: The rosier the GOP’s midterm prospects look in the spring, the more he can screw the base with some sort of Democrat-backed immigration measure without fear of too much damage at the polls. Besides, all the action in the midterms will be in the Senate, not the House. There are so few purple House districts left that even a big anti-ObamaCare tide would likely move only a dozen seats or so. The real worry for Dems is that the Senate will flip, and a House bill that’s soft on border security poses no obstacle to that. All Reid needs is five to ten GOPers to make it happen. He’ll get that with room to spare, even with all Republicans whose seats are up next year voting no. Except good ol’ Lindsey Graham, of course.

Here’s O a few weeks ago telling a heckler that he’d “solve” America’s immigration problem himself if he could. Are we sure he can’t? The White House isn’t denying it, and if you’ve already watched the Turley clip tonight, you know not to put anything past The One legally when there’s something to be gained politically by him from acting.

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